Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Transition of Son Preference: Evidence From South Korea

  • Published:
Demography

Abstract

Sex ratio at birth remains highly skewed in many Asian countries because of son preference. The ratio in South Korea, however, declined beginning in 1990 and reached the natural range in 2007. We study changes in child gender effects on fertility and parental investment during this period of decreasing sex ratio at birth. We find that gender discrimination on the extensive margin (fertility), such as sex-selective abortions and son-biased stopping rules, have nearly disappeared among recent cohorts. On the intensive margin (parental inputs), boys receive higher expenditures on private academic education, have mothers with fewer hours of labor supply, and spend less time on household chores relative to girls. These gender gaps have also narrowed substantially, however, over the past two decades. We consider alternative explanations, but altogether, evidence suggests the weakening of son preference in South Korea.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Although the SRB has dropped to 107 in Taiwan and Hong Kong during the past several years, it is too early to determine whether sex imbalance is resolved in these areas. For instance, the ratio jumped back to 113 in 2014 in Hong Kong, possibly due to migration from mainland China (Basten and Verropoulou 2013). The Caucasus region’s SRB has also begun to dip in recent years, but it is still above natural levels (Das Gupta 2015). Japan, on the other hand, has had normal SRB throughout; Kureishi and Wakabayashi (2011) and Fuse (2013) documented possibilities of a mixed or daughter preference in fertility.

  2. The infant mortality rate in 2017 was 3.1 for males and 2.5 for females (Statistics Korea 2019b).

  3. See Lundberg (2005) and Bharadwaj et al. (2015) for an overview of the literature on child gender and family behaviors. For the existence of child gender effects and son preference in South Korea, see Lee and Paik (2006), Kang (2011), Edlund and Lee (2013), and Choi and Hwang (2015).

  4. Authors’ calculation using the PEES data shows that about 86% of K–12 students received some type of private out-of-school education in 2007–2016. The demand for private out-of-school education is mainly due to the highly competitive college entrance exam. South Korean households spent more than 18 trillion KRW (approximately 18 billion USD), or more than 7% of total household spending, on private out-of-school education in 2016 (Statistics Korea 2017a, 2017b). On the contrary, expenditures on any education services constitute only about 2% of total expenditures among American households in the same year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2018).

  5. According to Statistics Korea (2015), 20.7% of married women aged 15–54 quit work because of childbirth and childcare (one-half of those who are currently not working). An article in The Economist (“South Korea’s economy” 2011) mentions “the job of supervising a child’s education falls to women, which is one of the reasons why relatively few women have jobs” in South Korea.

  6. More than 70% of expenditures on private out-of-school education is on Korean, math, and English (Statistics Korea 2017b), which account for 60% to 70% of the total maximum score in the national college entrance exam, known as the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT). The CSAT score determines college admissions decisions and potentially affects future labor market outcomes, which is encapsulated by “the one-shot society” (“Exams in South Korea” 2011).

  7. Missing values in covariates are imputed with mean values, and dummy variables for missing observations are also controlled.

  8. The argument that the estimate of β would be biased downward because of sex-selective abortions implicitly assumes that discriminatory parental behaviors on the extensive and intensive margins are positively correlated. Recent studies provide empirical evidence that this is indeed the case. The increase in the practice of sex-selective abortions has led to enhanced well-being of girls who were not aborted, in terms of after-birth mortality rates and nutrition status. See Lin et al. (2014) for the case of Taiwan, Hu and Schlosser (2015) for India, and Lee and Lee (2015) for South Korea.

  9. The law was amended in 1973 to permit abortion under special circumstances, including pregnancy from rape or incest, to preserve a woman’s health, and fetal impairment. According to a national survey of women of childbearing age conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, there were about 16 abortions per 1,000 people in South Korea in 2010—the tenth highest rate among 35 OECD countries (Rich 2018).

  10. Also see Park and Cho (1995) for birth order–specific SRB before 1990; see Jiang et al. (2017) for a decomposition of the changes in SRB by birth order.

  11. The analysis is restricted to households with a first child born in 1991–2009. See Park (1983) and Larsen et al. (1998) for descriptions of son-biased stopping behaviors among earlier cohorts.

  12. Section E of the online appendix shows that the KELS and PEES data yield similar results on private education spending when the estimation samples and the dependent variables are comparable.

  13. The negative Boy effect here does not by itself imply daughter preference in South Korea. We need evidence on various parental behaviors to conclude the existence or change in parents’ gender bias. We do not observe a switch in sign of the child gender effect on other outcome variables.

  14. Thus, t in Eq. (2) corresponds to year of first childbirth here, not survey year. Women who gave birth in 1998 (first wave of the KLIPS) are not included in the analysis because we do not have information on their pre-childbirth labor supply.

  15. In the United States, teenage girls spend on average 38 minutes a day on housework compared with 24 minutes a day for boys, according to an analysis of the 2014–2017 American Time Use Survey by the Pew Research Center (Livingston 2019).

  16. Mean of girls’ housework time decreased from 1.57 to 1.13 hours per week, and participation decreased from 39.34% to 30.04%. Mean of boys’ housework time increased from 0.55 to 0.64 hours per week, and participation increased from 20.76% to 20.80%.

  17. Child gender does seem to affect the stability of parents’ relationship in the United States (Dahl and Moretti 2008). Time allocation results are more ambiguous, however. Using the PSID, Lundberg and Rose (2002) showed that the positive effect of fatherhood on men’s labor supply is higher for those with sons relative to those with daughters, but child gender has no significant effect on mother’s work hours. See Lundberg (2005) for a review of the literature.

  18. Following the Korean War, the government began its national family planning campaign to slow population growth. Slogans such as “Sons or daughters, let’s have two and raise them well” and “A well-raised daughter is worth 10 sons” were widely advertised from the 1970s.

  19. To the question, “Who is responsible for parents’ old-age support?,” those who responded “parents themselves” increased from 13.7% in 2006 to 27.2% in 2016, whereas those who responded “family” declined from 67.3% to 32.6% (Statistics Korea 2016, 2017c).

References

  • Abrevaya, J. (2009). Are there missing girls in the United States? Evidence from birth data. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1(2), 1–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Almond, D., Edlund, L., & Milligan, K. (2013). Son preference and the persistence of culture: Evidence from South and East Asian immigrants to Canada. Population and Development Review, 39, 75–95.

  • Altindag, O. (2016). Son preference, fertility decline, and the nonmissing girls of Turkey. Demography, 53, 541–566.

  • Altonji, J. G., Elder, T. E., & Taber, C. R. (2005). Selection on observed and unobserved variables: Assessing the effectiveness of Catholic schools. Journal of Political Economy, 113, 151–184.

  • Álvarez, B., & Miles-Touya, D. (2012). Exploring the relationship between parents’ and children’s housework time in Spain. Review of Economics of the Household, 10, 299–318.

  • Anukriti, S. (2018). Financial incentives and the fertility-sex ratio trade-off. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 10(2), 27–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barcellos, S. H., Carvalho, L. S., & Lleras-Muney, A. (2014). Child gender and parental investments in India: Are boys and girls treated differently? American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 6(1), 157–189.

    Google Scholar 

  • Basten, S., & Verropoulou, G. (2013). “Maternity migration” and the increased sex ratio at birth in Hong Kong SAR. Population Studies, 67, 323–334.

  • Basu, D., & De Jong, R. (2010). Son targeting fertility behavior: Some consequences and determinants. Demography, 47, 521–536.

  • Becker, G. S. (1991). A treatise on the family (Expanded ed.) Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  • Becker, G. S., & Lewis, H. G. (1973). On the interaction between the quantity and quality of children. Journal of Political Economy, 81, S279–S288.

  • Becker, G. S., & Tomes, N. (1979). An equilibrium theory of the distribution of income and intergenerational mobility. Journal of Political Economy, 87, 1153–1189.

  • Behrman, J. R., Pollak, R. A., & Taubman, P. (1982). Parental preferences and provision for progeny. Journal of Political Economy, 90, 52–73.

  • Ben-Porath, Y., & Welch, F. (1976). Do sex preferences really matter? Quarterly Journal of Economics, 90, 285–307.

  • Bertrand, M., & Pan, J. (2013). The trouble with boys: Social influences and the gender gap in disruptive behavior. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 5(1), 32–64.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bharadwaj, P., Dahl, G. B., & Sheth, K. (2015). Gender discrimination in the family. In E. Redmount (Ed.), The economics of the family: How the household affects markets and economic growth (pp. 237–266). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blau, F. D., & Grossberg, A. J. (1992). Maternal labor supply and children’s cognitive development. Review of Economics and Statistics, 74, 474–481.

  • Blau, F. D., Kahn, L. M., Brummund, P., Cook, J., & Larson-Koester, M. (2017). Is there still son preference in the United States? (NBER Working Paper No. 23816). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.

  • Bongaarts, J. (2013). The implementation of preferences for male offspring. Population and Development Review, 39, 185–208.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brainerd, E. (2017). The lasting effect of sex ratio imbalance on marriage and family: Evidence from World War II in Russia. Review of Economics and Statistics, 99, 229–242.

  • Central Intelligence Agency. (2018). The world factbook, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/download/download-2018/index.html

  • Choi, E. J., & Hwang, J. (2015). Child gender and parental inputs: No more son preference in Korea? American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 105, 638–643.

  • Choi, H.-J., Joesch, J. M., & Lundberg, S. (2008). Sons, daughters, wives, and the labour market outcomes of West German men. Labour Economics, 15, 795–811.

  • Chung, W., & Das Gupta, M. (2007). The decline of son preference in South Korea: The roles of development and public policy. Population and Development Review, 33, 757–783.

  • Clark, S. (2000). Son preference and sex composition of children: Evidence from India. Demography, 37, 95–108.

  • Dahl, G. B., & Moretti, E. (2008). The demand for sons. Review of Economic Studies, 75, 1085–1120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Das Gupta, M. (2015). “Missing girls” in the south Caucasus countries (Policy Research Working Paper No. 7236). New York, NY: World Bank.

  • Das Gupta, M., & Bhat, P. N. M. (1997). Fertility decline and increased manifestation of sex bias in India. Population Studies, 51, 307–315.

  • Datcher-Loury, L. (1988). Effects of mother’s home time on children’s schooling. Review of Economics and Statistics, 70, 367–373.

  • Ebenstein, A. (2010). The “missing girls” of China and the unintended consequences of the One Child Policy. Journal of Human Resources, 45, 87–115.

  • Edlund, L., & Lee, C. (2013). Son preference, sex selection and economic development: The case of South Korea (NBER Working Paper No. 18679). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.

  • Exams in South Korea. The one-shot society. (2011, December 17). The Economist. Retrieved from https://www.economist.com/node/21541713

  • Fuse, K. (2013). Daughter preference in Japan: A reflection of gender role attitudes? Demographic Research, 28, 1021–1052. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2013.28.36

  • Gong, X., van Soest, A., & Zhang, P. (2005). The effects of the gender of children on expenditure patterns in rural China: A semiparametric analysis. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 20, 509–527.

  • Griliches, Z. (1979). Sibling models and data in economics: Beginnings of a survey. Journal of Political Economy, 87, S37–S64.

  • Guilmoto, C. Z. (2009). The sex ratio transition in Asia. Population and Development Review, 35, 519–549.

  • Han, W.-J., Waldfogel, J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2001). The effects of early maternal employment on later cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63, 336–354.

  • Hu, L., & Schlosser, A. (2015). Prenatal sex selection and girls’ well-being: Evidence from India. Economic Journal, 125, 1227–1261.

  • Jacob, B. A. (2002). Where the boys aren’t: Non-cognitive skills, returns to school and the gender gap in higher education. Economics of Education Review, 21, 589–598.

  • Jayachandran, S. (2017). Fertility decline and missing women. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 9(1), 118–139.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jayachandran, S., & Kuziemko, I. (2011). Why do mothers breastfeed girls less than boys? Evidence and implications for child health in India. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126, 1485–1538.

  • Jayachandran, S., & Lleras-Muney, A. (2009). Life expectancy and human capital investments: Evidence from maternal mortality declines. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 124, 349–397.

  • Jayachandran, S., & Pande, R. (2017). Why are Indian children so short? The role of birth order and son preference. American Economic Review, 107, 2600–2629.

  • Jensen, R. (2012). Do labor market opportunities affect young women’s work and family decisions? Experimental evidence from India. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 127, 753–792.

  • Jiang, Q., Yu, Q., Shucai Yang, S., & Sánchez-Barricarte, J. J. (2017). Changes in sex ratio at birth in China: A decomposition by birth order. Journal of Biosocial Science, 49, 826–841.

  • Kang, C. (2011). Family size and educational investments in children: Evidence from private tutoring expenditures in South Korea. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 73, 59–78.

  • Kashyap, R., & Villavicencio, F. (2016). The dynamics of son preference, technology diffusion, and fertility decline underlying distorted sex ratios at birth: A simulation approach. Demography, 53, 1261–1281.

  • Kaushal, N., & Muchomba, F. M. (2018). Missing time with parents: Son preference among Asians in the USA. Journal of Population Economics, 31, 397–427.

  • Kingdon, G. G. (2005). Where has all the bias gone? Detecting gender bias in the intrahousehold allocation of educational expenditure. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 53, 409–451.

  • Kornrich, S., & Furstenberg, F. (2013). Investing in children: Changes in parental spending on children, 1972–2007. Demography, 50, 1–23.

  • Kureishi, W., & Wakabayashi, M. (2011). Son preference in Japan. Journal of Population Economics, 24, 873–893.

  • Larsen, U., Chung, W., & Das Gupta, M. (1998). Fertility and son preference in Korea. Population Studies, 52, 317–325.

  • Lee, C., & Lee, E. (2015). Son preference, sex-selective abortion, and parental investment in girls in Korea: Evidence from the year of the White Horse (Working paper). Seoul, Korea: Seoul National University.

  • Lee, J., & Paik, M. (2006). Sex preferences and fertility in South Korea during the year of the Horse. Demography, 43, 269–292.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leibowitz, A. (1974). Home investments in children. Journal of Political Economy, 82, S111–S131.

  • Lin, M.-J., Liu, J.-T., & Qian, N. (2014). More missing women, fewer dying girls: The impact of abortion on sex ratios at birth and excess female mortality in Taiwan. Journal of the European Economic Association, 12, 899–926.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lin, T.-c., & Adserà, A. (2013). Son preference and children’s housework: The case of India. Population Research and Policy Review, 32, 553–584.

  • Livingston, G. (2019). The way U.S. teens spend their time is changing, but differences between boys and girls persist. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/20/the-way-u-s-teens-spend-their-time-is-changing-but-differences-between-boys-and-girls

  • Lundberg, S. (2005). Sons, daughters, and parental behavior. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 21, 340–356.

  • Lundberg, S., & Rose, E. (2002). The effects of sons and daughters on men’s labor supply and wages. Review of Economics and Statistics, 84, 251–268.

  • Mammen, K. (2011). Fathers’ time investments in children: Do sons get more? Journal of Population Economics, 24, 839–871.

  • Munshi, K., & Rosenzweig, M. (2006). Traditional institutions meet the modern world: Caste, gender, and schooling choice in a globalizing economy. American Economic Review, 96, 1225–1252.

  • Naeye, R. L., Burt, L. S., Wright, D. L., Blanc, W. A., & Tatter, D. (1971). Neonatal mortality, the male disadvantage. Pediatrics, 48, 902–906.

  • Oster, E. (2019). Unobservable selection and coefficient stability: Theory and evidence. Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 37, 187–204.

  • Pabilonia, S. W., & Ward-Batts, J. (2007). The effect of child gender on parents’ labor supply: An examination of natives, immigrants, and their children. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 97, 402–406.

  • Park, C. B. (1983). Preference for sons, family size, and sex ratio: An empirical study in Korea. Demography, 20, 333–352.

  • Park, C. B., & Cho, N.-H. (1995). Consequences of son preference in a low-fertility society: Imbalance of the sex ratio at birth in Korea. Population and Development Review, 21, 59–84.

  • Qian, N. (2008). Missing women and the price of tea in China: The effect of sex-specific earnings on sex imbalance. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 123, 1251–1285.

  • Ready, D. D., LoGerfo, L. F., Burkam, D. T., & Lee, V. E. (2005). Explaining girls’ advantage in kindergarten literacy learning: Do classroom behaviors make a difference? Elementary School Journal, 106, 21–38.

  • Rich, M. (2018, January 13). Push to end South Korea abortion ban gains strength, and signatures. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/world/asia/south-korea-abortion-ban.html

  • Rose, E. (2000). Gender bias, credit constraints and time allocation in rural India. Economic Journal, 110, 738–758.

  • Sen, A. (1990). More than 100 million women are missing. The New York Review of Books, 37(20), 61–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen, A. (1992). Missing women. British Medical Journal, 304, 587–588.

  • Sen, A. (2015, November 2). Women’s progress outdid China’s one-child policy. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/02/opinion/amartya-sen-womens-progress-outdid-chinas-one-child-policy.html

  • South Korea’s economy. What do you do when you reach the top? (2011, November 12). The Economist. Retrieved from https://www.economist.com/briefing/2011/11/12/what-do-you-do-when-you-reach-the-top

  • Statistics Korea. (2015). Statistics of women 2015 (Report). (in Korean) Retrieved from http://kostat.go.kr/smart/news/file_dn.jsp?aSeq=346959&ord=1

  • Statistics Korea. (2016). Statistics on the aged 2016 (Report). (in Korean) Retrieved from http://kostat.go.kr/portal/korea/kor_nw/1/6/1/index.board?bmode=read&aSeq=356426&pageNo=3&rowNum=10&amSeq=&sTarget=title&sTxt=

  • Statistics Korea. (2017a). Household income and expenditures: Fourth quarter and annual 2016 (Report). (in Korean) Retrieved from http://www.gov.kr/portal/ntnadmNews/1002653?srchOrder=VW&srchOrgCd=ALL&srchNewsAstCd=ALL&srchStDtFmt=2017.02.10&srchEdDtFmt=2017.03.10&srchTxt=&initSrch=false&pageIndex=31&hideurl=N

  • Statistics Korea. (2017b). Private education expenditures survey 2016 (Report). Retrieved from http://kosis.kr/upsHtml/online/downSrvcFile.do?PUBCODE=JG&SEQ=505&FILE_NAME=0904.pdf

  • Statistics Korea. (2017c). Statistics on the aged 2017. (in Korean) Retrieved from http://kostat.go.kr/portal/korea/kor_nw/1/1/index.board?bmode=read&aSeq=363362

  • Statistics Korea. (2019a). Birth statistics 2018. (in Korean) Retrieved from http://kosis.kr/statHtml/statHtml.do?orgId=101&tblId=DT_1B34E08&conn_path=I2

  • Statistics Korea. (2019b). Causes of death statistics. (in Korean) Retrieved from http://kosis.kr/statHtml/statHtml.do?orgId=101&tblId=DT_1B34E08&conn_path=I2

  • United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2015). World population prospects: 2015 revision. New York, NY: United Nations.

    Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). (2018). Consumer expenditures in 2016 (Report No. 1073). Washington, DC: BLS.

  • Vogel, A., & Korinek, K. (2012). Passing by the girls? Remittance allocation for educational expenditures and social inequality in Nepal’s households 2003–2004. International Migration Review, 46, 61–100.

  • Waldron, I. (1983). Sex differences in human mortality: The role of genetic factors. Social Science and Medicine, 17, 321–333.

  • Yeung, W. J., Linver, M. R., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2002). How money matters for young children’s development: Parental investment and family processes. Child Development, 73, 1861–1879.

  • Yoo, S. H., Hayford, S. R., & Agadjanian, V. (2017). Old habits die hard? Lingering son preference in an era of normalizing sex ratios at birth in South Korea. Population Research and Policy Review, 36, 25–54.

Download references

Acknowledgments

We thank Silvia Barcellos, Leandro Carvalho, Tom Chang, Aimee Chin, Dae Il Kim, Jae-Young Kim, Jinyoung Kim, Alan Krueger, Ilyana Kuziemko, Marta Lachowska, Chulhee Lee, Jae Won Lee, Young Lee, Pauline Leung, Doug Miller, Hyungsik Roger Moon, Anant Nyshadham, Cheolsung Park, Zhuan Pei, Ponpoje Porapakkarm, Hyelim Son, Maggie Triyana, Jungmo Yoon, and seminar participants at the 2015 ESWC, the 2015 Hanyang-Kobe-Nanyang Joint Symposium, the 2016 HERI-ISBR Joint Symposium, the 2016 SOLE conference, Chung-Ang University, Cornell PAM, Dongguk University, Korea University, KLEA, GRIPS, SNU, Sogang University, HKU, USC CESR, and Yonsei University for helpful comments and discussions; the Korean Educational Development Institute and the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs for providing data; and Jaewoo Choi, Weonhyeok Chung, Seojung Oh, Geumbi Park, and Dongsu You for research assistance. An earlier version of this article was titled “Transition of son preference: Child gender and parental inputs in Korea.” Choi’s research was supported by the research fund of Hanyang University (HY-2017). A portion of this research was conducted while Choi was visiting the Industrial Relations Section and the Department of Economics at Princeton University. Hwang acknowledges financial support from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. All remaining errors are our own. The STATA codes used for the analyses are available upon request.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Economics and Finance, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, 04763, South Korea

    Eleanor Jawon Choi

  2. Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Schaumburg-Lippe-Strasse 5-9, Bonn, 53113, Germany

    Eleanor Jawon Choi

  3. Department of International Economics and Law, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, 107 Imun-ro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, 02450, South Korea

    Jisoo Hwang

Authors
  1. Eleanor Jawon Choi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jisoo Hwang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jisoo Hwang.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

(PDF 488 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Choi, E.J., Hwang, J. Transition of Son Preference: Evidence From South Korea. Demography 57, 627–652 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-020-00863-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-020-00863-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation